


with great power comes great–

by thiefless



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Intrusive Thoughts, Mental Compulsions, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Pure-O, Reassurance Seeking, Rituals, Rumination, Unreliable Narrator, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 15:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22498663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thiefless/pseuds/thiefless
Summary: If Peter doesn't comply, Mr. Stark will be shot in the neck.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 23
Kudos: 124





	with great power comes great–

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys. So this is just a kind of extended drabble/ficlet thing. It's based on this manifestation of OCD called Pure-O, which is when the obsessions take the form of unwanted intrusive thoughts, and the compulsions are often unseen mental rituals. 
> 
> I just want to preface this by saying that I have not been diagnosed by OCD nor am I an expert on psychiatry. This is just a culmination of research. I hope I've done this justice. 
> 
> If any of you are feeling the way Peter does, then please reach out to people to help. 
> 
> This fic is set in the time before Thanos. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy! :)

– _responsibility_.

* * *

Peter has a secret night time ritual that only he can perform. After all other tasks have been completed – both menial (homework) and paramount (Spider-Man) – and in the immediacy before sleep beckons him, he is to recite these five little bullet points in his mind:

  * Five things he can see.
  * Four things he can hear.
  * Three things he can feel.
  * Two things he can smell.
  * One thing he can taste. 



If Peter doesn't comply, Mr. Stark will be shot in the neck. 

Needless to say, Peter obeys. Every time. 

Hey, now. It's all perfectly safe, so long as Peter submits to its demands. Besides, Mr. Stark taught him this neat technique – to help cope with anxiety, and, well, this definitely constitutes a stressful situation – and Mr. Stark has never before led him astray. Peter trusts him; implicitly and unreservedly.

This is nothing more than a precautionary prayer. Peter's actions and non-actions have consequences, a fact he is painfully aware of, so logically it stands to reason that they can predetermine the future – and Peter is viciously uncompromising on the safety of those he loves. If he has to itemise certain things before he is allowed to fall asleep, then that's what he'll do.

* * *

These days, Peter feels very much like one of _those_ cartoon characters – you know, the ones with the noticeable dark cloud hovering atop their heads like a swinging axe; like a contagious plague. The ones the happy people avoid at all costs, taking great pains to ensure their paths never cross lest they get infected by all the negativity. 

_what if what if what if **what if peter had stopped the burglar before he shot uncle ben** what if what if what if what if what if **what if tony hadn't shown up at the staten island ferry and all those people would have died because of peter** what if what if what if what if what if what if what if **what if peter had never met tony stark** what if what if what if what if _

Peter's thoughts sure do resemble a dark cloud: a tumbleweed of debilitating doubt and uncertainty. Except Peter's tumbleweed doesn't flit across the screen – no. This is more like the screen is frozen, pause is broken. Peter can't change the channel. 

It's like H.Y.D.R.A. – he disproves one 'what if' and then two more take its place.

But it's fine. It's great. It's manageable. Peter just has to balance it out with happy thoughts, and then he'll be fine. Right as rain – get it? 

He can handle it.

* * *

Often times, during peaks of boredom and loneliness otherwise known as high school, his mind will occupy itself with thoughts of an anxious nature, genetically engineered to implicate Peter in imagined scenarios of crime. 

Specifically – _violent_ crime.

During English, his brain comes up with 1,257 variant methods in which he could kill Aunt May without even trying – quite a few of them just by lifting a finger. Peter isn't consciously aware of this thought process, he's doing his best to focus on _King Lear,_ but his mind refuses to cooperate until Peter assuages his own guilt, arguing incessantly against the demon inside his head. 

(What kind of person thinks of harming those he loves?)

Ned nudges him back into focus after his fifth time zoning out – “You okay, Peter?” – and Peter nods, lies, says _I'm fine._

“I am a good person, aren't I?” he asks over lunch, the question leaving in a rushed breath, urgency colouring his tone. 

His self-professed Guy in the Chair squints at Peter over his peanut-butter sandwich. 

“Uh, yeah,” Ned responds, flashing a perplexed smile. “Of course you are. You're Spider-Man,” and thankfully that last part is a whispered exclamation. 

The doubt is subdued by Ned's assertion, and Peter clings to the words like the vindication they are. 

Later tonight, the words _You’re Spider-Man_ play on repeat in his mind. 

Peter is Spider-Man. Spider-Man equals

R **E** S **P** O **N** S **I** B **I** L **I** T **Y.**

Meaning: he cannot rest until his rituals are complete.

* * *

  
Peter remembers the image from before, of him snapping May's neck with his index finger. 

The image lingers. 

May reaches out her arms to hug him, and all Peter can see are visions where his strength crushes her like an empty soda can, falling to pieces in his grip.

He deftly removes himself from her reach. 

Guilt churns in his stomach as May's face crumples in hurt at his perceived rejection – but it's better than the alternative. 

_Anything_ is better than the alternative.

* * *

His intrusive thoughts don't rest on Spider-Man hours. They circle like vultures, poised to tear him apart with illogical facts and opinions, driving him crazy. The silent harbinger of prophesised doom.

Peter has terrible visions of negligence during patrols, so he circles the street once, twice, thrice until his guilt is momentarily abated. No horrific, bloody scene enters his sight, no innocent civilian desperately crying out for their hero: _Spider-Man! Please help me! Where are you? I need you!_ Only for Spider-Man to never rescue the imaginary victim, because Peter fucking Parker is too busy prancing about playing make-believe, and actually has no idea how to handle the responsibility of being a super-hero.

 _I had no idea what was happening,_ imaginary Peter says in court, addressing a judge and jury that are predisposed to hate him. _I didn't mean for this to happen. You have to believe me. It was out of my control._

... yeah. On second thoughts, maybe another quick patrol wouldn't hurt. 

The next morning, the Daily Bugle prints a headline: Spider-Man Running In Circles? 

"Did you get lost, baby?" May teases lightly over breakfast, her hand ruffling his hair. 

Peter pretends to be in on the joke.

* * *

Thoughts don't occur in a vacuum. That would be silly – not to mention, contradict the scientific law on the conservation of mass. _Matter can neither be created nor destroyed._

Every time Peter has an unwanted thought, he has to violently shrug it off, to shake his shoulders, his head, _anything_. Because if he doesn't, then the image or word or command will take root, will burrow deep past his fleshy epidermis, entrench into his skull, use his brain like soil as they seed and multiply and grow, until Peter is just a vessel, a vector, a stupid semi-permeable membrane, and – holy fuck, he can't _breathe_.

* * *

Fleetingly, Peter thinks about telling May about his thoughts – thinks about confiding in Ned about why he can't sleep – thinks about revealing to Mr. Stark that he isn't cut out to be a superhero. 

Key word: Peter _thinks_.

The idea is spurned, and the customary _oh, but it's not that bad_ repudiates the severity of his internal turmoil with such conviction that Peter submits to the narrative scripted for him. It isn't that bad. 

Besides, this is all in Peter's head. What kind of fucked up individual has thoughts about harming others anyway?

In any case: why would his brain – the very thing responsible for manufacturing him, the organ that crafted his identity from nothing but cells – deliberately harm him?

* * *

There's a certain irrationality to these demands that belies logic, and Peter _understands_ that. But that doesn't make him any less anxious, any less terrified at the thought of any harm befalling his loved ones. The fear builds and builds inside his gut, swells until it's pressing on all his other organs, asphyxiating the oxygen from his blood, letting the cells wither and die and decay inside his body, until finally, with a trembling crescendo of urgency born of despair, Peter capitulates. 

_Can you die from anxiety?_ Peter mouths to his reflection with half-baked hysteria, noting the dark crescent moons under his eyes, his pasty pallor, the cold sweat matting his hair from a recent night terror. 

If his reflection holds the secret, he doesn't say.

* * *

The cycle perpetuates, eternising in Peter's mind. 

There's a reason he clings to his little ritual before bed, just like there's a reason why he patrols for six hours every day, heedless of school or deadlines or commitments. Peter isn't doing this for superhero street cred, and he has no desire for critical acclaim. Peter will do anything – _a n y t h i n g_ – to stave off the panic, to assuage his guilty conscience, even if the resulting euphoria is only a transient experience. He'll brandish his arm, take the hit like a junkie, and wait for his mind to beg for more. 

Peter is a crumb of sodium on water, and he is falling

  
f a l l i n g

**f**

_a_

**l**

_l_

**i**

_n_

**g**

– way, way down into the eldritch abyss of his mind.

* * *

“Am I a good person?” Peter asks Mr. Stark during their next weekly lab session. He thinks his question sounded passably casual, a far cry from the slightly manic manner when he asked Ned the same, but it would seem not, for Mr. Stark turns to appraise him, setting his tools down on the work bench with precision. 

The silence between them is deafening, and Peter feels asphyxiated by all the things he cannot disclose. His cheeks are on fire, eyes downcast and trained studiously on his web shooters. 

Peter is beginning to regret he ever asked – but he craves the ephemeral relief from the anxiety, even if it is only temporary. Maybe this time, with Mr. Stark's words ringing in his ears, he could start to believe it. 

_What if Mr. Stark says that you're a bad person?_

It's like a fist has ripped apart Peter's ribcage, swatted his lungs like flimsy punching bags, and taken hold of Peter's heart and started to knead it like dough. 

“You're the best person I've ever met,” comes Mr. Stark's reply, and Peter wants to beam but Mr. Stark's tone is _off._ Peter sees Mr. Stark open his mouth, close it; watches Mr. Stark compose his thoughts – Peter can empathise with that – and then say: “Peter, are you okay?”

Peter freezes, statuesque. 

_I'm fine_ is on the tip of his tongue, begging to be released, yet he finds himself hesitating. It's the same lie he spouts a million times a day, the falsehood he has no problem executing to May, to Ned, to MJ – but his mouth cannot contort around the syllables.

The batteries in his remote have run out of juice. He cannot maintain the charade. 

“No,” he croaks instead, lifting his head to Mr. Stark's gaze. “I don't think I am.”


End file.
